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 FILIPPINI

74

FILLASTRE

1439. Some of the foregoing conciliar documents may be seen in Hefele, "Conciliengeschichte" (2d ed.), Ill, nn. 109, 117, 252, 411; cf. P. G., XXVIII, 1567 sqq. Bessarion, speaking in the Council of Florence, in- ferred the tradition of the Greek Church from the teaching of the Latin; since the Greek and the Latin Fathers before the ninth century were members of the same Church, it is antecedently improbable that the Eastern Fathers should have denied a dogma firmly maintained by the Western. Moreover, there are cer- tain considerations which form a direct proof for the belief of the Greek Fathers in the double Procession of the Holy Ghost. First, the Greek Fathers enumerate the Divine Persons in the same order as the Latin Fathers; they admit that the Son and the Holy Ghost are logically and ontologically connected in the same way as the Son and the Father [St. Basil, Ep. cxxv; Ep. xxxviii (alias xliii) ad Gregor. fratrem; "Adv. Eunom.", I, xx, III, sub inil.]. Second, the Greek Fathers establish the same relation between the Son and the Holy Ghost as between the Father and the Son; as the Father is the fourttain of the Son, so is the Son the fountain of the Holy Ghost (Athan., Ep. ad Serap., I, xix, sqq.; "De Incarn.", ix; Orat. iii, adv. Arian., 24; Basil, "Adv. Eunom.", v, in P. G., XXIX, 731; cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. xliii, 9). Third, passages are not wanting in the writings of the Greek Fathers in which the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son is clearly maintained: Greg. Thaumat., "Expos, fidei sec.", vers. ssec. IV, in Rufinus, Hist. Eccl., VII, xxv; Epif)han.,Haer.,c. Ixii, 4; Greg. Nyss., Hom. iii in orat. domin. (cf. Mai, "Bibl. nova Patrum", IV, 40 sqq.); Cyril of Alexandria, "Thes.", ass. xxxiv; the second canon of a synod of forty bishops held in 410 at Seleucia in Mesopotamia (cf. Lamy, "Concilium Seleucite et Ctesiphonte habitum a. 410", Louvain, 1869; Hefele, "Conciliengeschichte", II, 102 sqq.); the Arabic ver- sion of the Canons of St. Hippolytus (Haneberg, "Canones Sti. Hyppolyti", Miinster, 1870, 40, 76); the Nestorian explanation of the Symbol (cf. Badger, "The Nestorians", London, 1852, II, 79; Cureton, "Ancient Syriac Documents Relative to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa", London, 1864, 43; "The Doctrine of Addai, the Apostle", ed. Phillips, London, 1876). The only Scriptural diffi- culty deserving our attention is based on the words of Christ as recorded in John, xv, 26, that the Spirit pro- ceeds from the Father, without mention being made of the Son. But in the first place, it cannot be shown that this omission amounts to a denial; in the second place, the omission is only apparent, as in the earlier part of the verse the Son promises to "send" the Spirit. The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son is not mentioned in the Creed of Constantinople, because this Creed was directed against the Mace- donian error against which it sufficed to declare the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father. The ambiguous expressions found in some of the early writers of authority are explained by the principles ■which apply to the language of the early Fathers generally.

II. Historical Importance op theFilioqde. — It has been seen that the Creed of Constantinople at first declared only the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father; it was directed against the followers of Macedonius who denied the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. In the East, the omission of Filioque did not lead to any serious misunderstand- ing. But conditions were different in Spain after the Goths had renounced Arianism and professed the Catholic faith in the Third Synod of Toledo, 589. It cannot be ascertained who liist adde<l the Filioque to the ('rood; but it ap|ii-:irs to he cerlain that the ('reed, with the addition of the lMli(«|U(., was first suns; in the Spanish Churcli after tlic coMvcrsiiin of the Goths. In 7iM) the Patriarch Paiilinus of A(|uilcia justified and iidopted the same addition at the Synod of Friaul, and

in 809 the Council of Aachen appears to have approved of it. The decrees of this last council %\ere examined by Pope Leo III, who approved of the doctrine con- veyed by the Filioque, but gave the advice to omit the expression in the Creed. The practice of adding the Filioque was retained in spite of the papal advice, and about the middle of the eleventh century it had gained a firm foothold in Rome itself. Scholars do not agree as to the exact time of its introduction into Rome, but most assign it to the reign of Benedict VIII (1014-15). The Catholic doctrine was accepted by the Greek dep- uties who were present at the Second Council of Lyons, in 1274, and at the Council of Florence, in 1439, when the Creed was sung both in Greek and Latin, with the addition of the word Filinque. On each occasion it was hoped that the Patriarch of Constantinople and his subjects had abandoned the state of heresy and schism in which they had been living since the time of Photius, who about 870 found in the Filioque an ex- cuse for throwing off all dependence on Rome. But however sincere the individual Greek bishops may have been, they failed to carry their people with them, and the breach between East and West continues to this day. It is a matter for surprise that so abstract a subject as the doctrine of the double Procession of the Holy Ghost should have appealed to the imagination of the multitude. But their national feelings had been aroused by the desire of liberation from the rule of the ancient rival of Constantinople; the occasion of law- fully obtaining their desire appeared to present itself in the addition of Filioque to the Creed of Constanti- nople. Had not Rome overstepped her rights by dis- obeying the inj unction of the Third Council, of Ephesus (431), and of the Fourth, of Chalcedon (451)? It is true that these councils had forbidden to introduce another faith or another Creed, and had imposed the penalty of deposition on bishops and clerics, and of excommunication on monks and laymen for trans- gressing this law; but the councils had not forbidden to explain the same faith or to propose the same Creed in a clearer way. Besides, the conciliar decrees af- fected individual transgressors, as is plain from the sanction added; they did not bind the Church as a body. Finally, the Councils of Lyons and Florence did not require the Greeks to insert the Filioque into the Creed, but only to accept the Catholic doctrine of the double Procession of the Holy Ghost. (See Holy Ghost and Creed.)

Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology (New York, 1896), II, 193 sqq.; HuRTER, TheotogifE DogmaticcB Compendium (Inns- bruck, 1888), II, 145 sqq.; Becker in Kirchenlexicon, s. v.; Petavius, De Trinilate, Lib. VII; van der Moeren, Dissertalio theoloffica de processione Spiritus Sancli ex Patre Filioque (Lou- vain, 1864); ViNCENZi, De processione Spiritus Sancti (Kome, 1878). See also literature under Holy (jhost.

A. J. Maas.

Filippini. See Oratorians.

Fillastre (Philastrius), Guillaume, French cardinal, canonist, humanist, and geographer, b. 1348 at La Suze, Maine, France; d. at Rome, 6 November, 1428. After graduating as doctor juris utriusgue, Fillastre taught jurisprudence at Reims, and in 1392 was appointed dean of its metropolitan chapter. During the Western Schism he showed at first much sympathy for Benedict XIII (Peter de Luna). In 1409, however, he took part in the attempt to recon- cile the factions at the Council of Pisa. John XXIII conferred on him and his friend d'Ailly the dignity of cardinal (1411), and in 1413 he was made Archbishop of Aix. Fillastre took a very important part in the Council of Constance, where he and Cardinal d'Ailly were the first to agitate the question of the abdication of the rival claimants (February, 1415). He won special distinction through the many legal questions on which he gave decisions. Martin V, in whose elec- tion he had been an important, factor, appointed liim Icgalus a latere to France (1418), where he was to pro-